Ireland, Ireland! That cloud in the west, that coming storm. William E Gladstone, 1845
My mission is to pacify Ireland. William E Gladstone, 1868
It is perfectly true that these gentlemen wish to march through rapine to disintegration and dismemberment of the Empire, and, I am sorry to say, even to the placing of different parts of the Empire in direct hostility one with the other. William E Gladstone, speech 27th October 1881, re Irish Land League
We are bound to lose Ireland in consequence of years of cruelty, stupidity and misgovernment and I would rather lose her as a friend than as a foe. W E Gladstone
What captivity has been to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish. For us, the romance of our native land begins only after we have left home; it is really only with other people that we become Irishmen. Peter Ackroyd, The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
The God of nature never intended that Ireland should be a province, and by God she never will. Thomas Goold, 1766-1846, Irish lawyer & politician
The best way to avoid danger is to meet it plump. Boyle Roche, 1743-1807, Irish politician
This country of ours is no sandbank thrown up by some recent caprice of earth. It is an ancient land, honoured in the archives of civilisation, traceable into antiquity by its piety, its valour, and its sufferings. Every great European race has sent its stream to the river of Irish mind. Thomas Davis, Literary and Historical Europe, 1846
If we influenced by wind, and sun, and tree, and not by the passions and deeds of the past, we are a thriftless and hopeless people. ibid
Thus you have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish question. Benjamin Disraeli, speech House of Commons 16th February 1844
My only programme for Ireland consists, in equal parts, of Home Rule and the Ten Commandments. My only counsel to Ireland is, that in order to become deeply Irish, she must become European. Thomas Kettle, Apology
Ireland is a small be insuppressible island half an hour nearer the sunset than Great Britain. Thomas Kettle, On Crossing the Irish Sea
The idea of two nations in Ireland is revolting and hateful. The idea of our agreeing to the partition of our nation is unthinkable. John Redmond, Nationalist leader 11th April 1912
Why should Ireland be treated as a geographical fragment of England? … Ireland is not a geographic fragment, but a nation. Charles Stewart Parnell, speech House of Commons 26th April 1875
My policy is not a policy of conciliation, but a policy of retaliation. Charles Stewart Parnell, 1877, re Irish Party’s tactics in House of Commons
No man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation; no man has a right to say to his country – thus far shalt thou go and no further. Charles Stewart Parnell, speech Cork 21st January 1885
The worker is the slave of the capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave. James Connolly, 1868-1916, The Re-Conquest of Ireland 1915
The time for Ireland's battle is NOW, the place for Ireland’s battle is HERE. James Connolly, The Workers’ Republic 22nd January 1916
Such a scheme as that agreed to by Redmond and Devlin, the betrayal of the national democracy of industrial Ulster, would mean a carnival of reaction North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish Labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements whilst it endured. To it Labour should give the bitterest opposition, against it Labour in Ulster should fight even to the death, if necessary. James Connolly
A real socialist movement cannot be built by temporising in front of a dying cause such as that of the Orange Ascendancy, even although in the paroxysms of its death struggle it assumes the appearance of energy like unto that of health. A real socialist movement can only be born of struggle, of uncompromising affirmation of the faith that is in us. Such a movement infallibly gathers to it every element of rebellion and of progress, and in the midst of the storm and stress of the struggle solidifies into a real revolutionary force. James Connolly
The fools, the fools, the fools, they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holes these graves Ireland unfree shall never be at peace. Patrick Pearse, 1915
Here be ghosts that I have raised this Christmastide, ghosts of dead men that have bequeathed a trust to us living men. Ghosts are troublesome things in a house or in a family, as we knew ever before Ibsen taught us. There is only one way to appease a ghost. You must do the thing it asks you. The ghosts of a nation sometimes ask very big things and they must be appeased, whatever the cost. Patrick Pearse
The country wears their going like a scar,
Today their relatives save to support and
Send others in planes for the new diaspora. Sean Dunne, 1956-97, Letter from Ireland, 1993
And when the Treaty emptied the British jails,
A haggard woman returned and Dublin went will to greet her.
But still it was not enough: an iota
Of compromise, she cried, and the Cause fails. C Day-Lewis, 1904-72
We were the last romantics – chose for them
Traditional sanctity and loveliness. W B Yeats, Coole Park and Ballylee
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It's with O’Leary in the grave. W B Yeats, September 1913
We Irish, born into that ancient sect
But thrown upon this filthy modern tide
And by its formless spawning fury wrecked,
Climb to our proper dark, that we may trace
The lineaments of a plummet-measured face. W B Yeats, The Statues, 1939
Cast your mind on other days
That we in coming days may be
Still the indomitable Irishry. W B Yeats, Under Ben Bulben, 1939
We ... are no petty people. We are one of the great stocks of Europe. We are the people of Burke; we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created most of the modern literature of this country. We have created the best of its political intelligence. W B Yeats, speech Irish Senate 11th June 1925
Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy. W B Yeats
Easter Monday 1916: Sinn Fein has occupied railway stations, the GPS and other places. They have blocked the streets nearing Stephen’s Green. They are shooting at anyone they see in karki. Alfred Fannin, writing to brother
The Irish leader who would connive in the name of Home Rule at the acceptance of any measure which alienated for a day – for an hour – for one moment of time – a square inch of the soil of Ireland would act the part of a traitor and would deserve a traitor’s fate. Arthur Griffith, 1871-1922
cf.
What I have signed I shall stand by in the belief that the end of the conflict of centuries is at hand. Arthur Griffith
We have brought back to Ireland her full rights. Arthur Griffith
Think - what I have got for Ireland? Something which she has wanted these past seven hundred years. Will anyone be satisfied at the bargain? Will anyone? I tell you this – early this morning I signed my death warrant. I thought at the time how odd, how ridiculous – a bullet may just as well have done the job five years ago. Michael Collins, letter 6th December 1921
Now as one of the signatories of the document I naturally recommend its acceptance. I do not recommend it for more than it is. Equally I do not recommend it for less than it is. In my opinion it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire and develop to, but the freedom to achieve it. Michael Collins
There is no British Government any more in Ireland. It is gone. It is no longer the enemy. We have now a native government, constitutionally elected, and it is the duty of every Irish man and woman to obey it. Anyone who fails to obey is an enemy of the people and must expect to be treated as such. We have to learn that attitudes and actions which were justifiable when directed against alien administration, holding its position by force, are wholly unjustifiable against a native government which exists only to carry out the people’s will, and can be changed the moment it ceases to do so. We have to learn that freedom imposes responsibilities. Michael Collins
The Treaty is already vindicating itself. The English Die-hards said to Mr Lloyd George and his Cabinet: You have surrendered. Our own Die-hards said to us: You have surrendered. There is a simple test. Those who are left in possession of the battlefield have won. Michael Collins